


Lessons

by Esteliel



Category: Carol Berg - Transformation series
Genre: 1000-3000 words, M/M, POV First Person, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>To the Derzhi, failure at such matters was unthinkable, no less a defeat than one on the battlefield.</i> And Aleksander expects Seyonne to overcome whatever enchantment has been placed on him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sometimesophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimesophie/gifts).



I had long since learned to sleep whenever I had the opportunity – sleep was a luxury that was afforded a slave as little as possible by his masters. The prince was no different in that respect, and though Durgan was kinder than most slave handlers, still he did his work well, and that meant that my weary body found but a few hours of precious rest every night.

Another lesson I had soon learned was to keep still and silent if my sleep was interrupted during those rare hours of rest. It mattered little whether it was a capricious master with yet another request, or a slave handler hungry for the body of an Ezzarian slave – to give even the smallest appearance of fight would but lead to more hours of lost sleep, and more often than not, a severe beating for my troubles.

So when I woke from the touch of a hand covering my mouth, I stayed still and quiet until I heard the familiar voice of Durgan in my ear.

"Silent now. He wants you again. And be quick, I want you to wash up this time."

I nodded obediently to show him that I had understood, and after he took his hand away and opened the lock that chained me to the wall, I got up to follow him through the dark, surrounded by sleeping slaves, or those who had learned, like I, to pretend that they did.

The water in the basin was icy cold, but I suppressed my shivering and quickly washed myself, grateful for this luxury. I gave the dull knife a questioning look, but Durgan shook his head, sparing me the painstaking duty of sawing off my hair. Instead, I was given a clean slave tunic, and Durgan looked me over one more time.

"He is still out drinking with friends – well, they are drinking, I heard he has begun the ephrail - but he has ordered you to be there when he returns. Whether that is in one hour or in three, no one knows, but if you know what is good for you-"

"I will kneel on his floor and wait, whether he returns in one day or ten," I finished wearily. It would not be the first night's sleep I lost waiting for the whims of a capricious master, and it certainly would not be the last.

A guard led me silently through the many corridors of the summer palace, icy drafts caressing my bare legs despite the many opulent carpets on the walls. The prince's chambers were well-heated, of course, a fire roaring in his hearth and his bed overturned to await his return with another lord's fawning daughter at his side, and even though I had resigned myself to a sleepless night, the prospect of spending an entire night in a place so warm and free from the tormenting icy drafts more than made up for it. I truly had not felt so warm for years...

A pair of slender, bare legs appeared in my vision, and when I slowly raised my head, I found Hessio, the prince's bodyslave, glaring down at me. He did not say a word, but his outrage at my appearance in what he clearly thought of as _his_ area was obvious enough. I lowered my head again, my face carefully empty of all thought. The fair-haired eunuch was very beautiful, yet even so, by now he should have learned not to take his position for granted. Pride and arrogance in a slave pleased no master, even when it came so beautifully packaged - and even though the slave would never grow into a man, his youth was fleeting nevertheless. Even with a kind master he would have no more than a few years, and with someone as spoiled and volatile as the Prince, he might find himself thrown out of his master's bed on nothing more than a whim.

And yet, it was not my place to teach the young eunuch about the truths of a slave's life. I could not allow myself to care about what would be his eventual fate once the Prince had no more use for him. For now, all I knew was that Hessio was the Prince's favorite, and might even be able to influence him to have me beaten or killed for an inappropriate look.

So I waited with lowered head and listened to the sounds of Hessio doing his duties - caring for the fire, warming the Prince's bed for him with heated stones, preparing a bowl of fruit if the Prince should return hungry, and at last I heard the rustle of clothes and the soft creak of the bed. I wondered whether Hessio truly dared to undress and wait for the Prince in his own bed - with such an unpredictable master it might just as well earn him a beating instead of the Prince's attention. Yet neither option concerned me. I was but the Prince's Ezzarian writing slave. It had been long years since I had been forced to serve those kinds of needs, and I was grateful that my body no longer seemed to rouse the desires of my masters - if Hessio felt threatened by my presence and sought to show off his own standing, then that was no concern of mine.

Sooner than I had thought, there were unmistakable sounds in the adjoining room that showed that the Prince had returned at last. A woman's voice, laughter, a long silence interrupted now and then by some giggling, and then - the Prince's voice again, this time raised in anger, and the crashing sound of something heavy thrown against the walls.

I barely suppressed a flinch when he stormed into his bedroom, realizing now what it was that had made him order me here. Instead of waiting until the ephrail had sorted out his problem, Aleksander seemed simply unable of accepting that his body for once refused to do as he bid.

"Take her away - I can't stand that woman, she knows nothing about how to please a man!" Another priceless vase crashed to the floor, and the guard wisely closed the bedroom door before fleeing the irate Prince's quarters together with whatever woman he had brought here.

Aleksander did not even deign me with a single glance. "Come here, Hessio," he ordered, his voice still dark with frustration and rage, so that I pitied the young bodyslave. I doubted that Hessio would fare better than the woman. It was but the Prince's mind that rendered him unable to perform - yet to voice that thought would have meant my death, and so I knelt silently, patiently, while the rustle of clothing told me that Aleksander was being undressed. For a long moment there was quiet, although Hessio once made a soft, breathless, _wet_ sound that told me all too clearly what he was trying to do.

Then the Prince's rage erupted once more, and I heard the characteristic sound of a hand hitting flesh, and Hessio's pained sob. More vases hit the floor, a few of the splinters even flew so far as to hit my skin, and while the crashes continued together with the Prince's swearing and cursing of Hessio's inept fumbling, I heard the soft patter of naked feet running, and another door closing as the young slave at last escaped from his volatile master's mood.

"Ezzarian!" A hand in my hair brutally pulled up my head, so that I was forced to meet the Prince's eyes - and then, just like Hessio, I was slapped and pushed back so violently that I sprawled on the floor, staring up at Aleksander who towered over me with all the restless energy of a caged shengar.

"Have you cursed me, Ezzarian? Maybe it was you and not the Khelid after all..."

I searched for words, but how could I explain such a thing to a Prince who did not _want_ to believe in sorcery, or demons?

"If the Khelid has poisoned you, even with the ephrail it will take another day or two for the poison to leave your body, my lord." Despite my position on the floor and my stinging cheek, I kept my voice calm and docile, hoping against all hope that the Prince would not choose to vent his anger on my vulnerable body.

"For two days I have neither eaten nor drunk anything which might have been tempered with by that filthy Khelid," Aleksander said with barely suppressed rage. "I am starting to believe that you are lying to me, Ezzarian. Maybe you want me to act against the Khelid in the hope that my father will punish me for it? But if that is your plan I will make certain that you suffer much, much worse - the Rites of Balthar will seem like mere child's play to you."

I shuddered, unable to hide my fear and revulsion at the terrible memory of how they had purged all sorcery from my body, until all that was left of me was this - a cringing slave at his master's feet.

"I did nothing, my lord - I swear I did not. The Khelid-"

"The Khelid has not been close to me for at least two days. No, Ezzarian, you cannot blame this on the Khelid. If you savor your life, you will come up with a better excuse than that."

I frantically searched for something - anything! - that would help me out of this situation. I could not come to him with more talk of demons, nor could I tell him that it was but his mind that caused this problem. I could pretend to cast a spell myself, for in these cases to have him believe that he was healed was all the cure he needed - but to give even the smallest hint that there might be any sorcery left in me would mean a fate far worse than anything I had experienced before. I had survived the Rites of Balthar once - to undergo them a second time would destroy what was left of my sanity. Better to die from the Prince's knife...

"Maybe something to speed the cleansing of the ephrail," I suggested carefully, hoping that the Prince would come to the solution I intended him to find, for it was always dangerous for a slave to appear smarter than his masters.

Aleksander frowned, then his face set with determination and he yanked open a cabinet which held a multitude of boxes and bottles. One of the bottles he took out, and I bit back a sigh of relief when I saw the pale liqueur and the gold-encrusted bottle of heavy crystal.

A gift from a likai to his student, the liqueur distilled from the bark that the Derzhi also used to brew their stinking nazrheel with was drunk before a young warrior's first battle - and also at the wedding feast, before he would retire with his bride for the night. As long as Aleksander believed in the potency of the liqueur - and like all Derzhi, of course he did - this might serve very well.

Without deigning to look at me, Aleksander poured himself a small glass and emptied it wordlessly, standing motionless for a moment afterward, just waiting, breathing slowly as if he were listening to his body, waiting for the liqueur to do its work.

"Where is that damned slave?" he said at last, his voice changed already, deeper now - showing the first signs of desire, I realized in surprise, and also realized that I had never seen him aroused before. Aleksander stepped towards the door, but then stopped, looking down at the multicolored shards strewn all over the floor.

"What a mess you have made," he said contemptuously and came back to stand in front of me once more. "Yes, do not look at me like that, Ezzarian. It is your fault, and you know it well. All that damned talk of demons and sorcery... But as you see, your so-called sorcery is nothing that can not be fixed by a simple sip of Derzhi liqueur."

I knelt silently before him, my eyes trained on his feet. _What comes, comes..._ But what came was not the kick I had expected, but a hand that pulled me up and pushed me back down over the desk I did my writing on for him. The ink well was pushed over, and I watched the ink drip to the floor, staining the carpet of the finest white wool, concentrating on the slow _drip, drip, drip_ as my legs were forced apart and Aleksander triumphantly pressed against me, almost drunk with exultation at what he thought was his triumph over my so-called sorcery.

He was still wet from when Hessio had tried to rouse him with his mouth, but I had not been used in such a way for years - I was no longer the young Ezzarian who had been forced to submit to his masters and their friends so many times, until it became nothing more than another unpleasant duty. Now, though, I remembered the true humiliation of being used in such a way, the shame and the helplessness. Aleksander was not cruel, not like so many of my old masters had been, but all the same I was not a lover but a slave, and one who seemed to have forgotten his place at that.

I could not bite back a soft, pained gasp when he breached me, but if my eyes were brimming with impotent tears, he did not see them while he used me methodically, sparing me nothing while he used my body for his pleasure. He was teaching me a lesson, one I had been taught before, and yet I seemed to have forgotten it when I saw the cold eyes of the demon. What did the rai-kirah matter when I was nothing but a slave, a slave to use and to discard as the prince saw fit? I was neither friend nor servant to offer his help; I was but a slave who would do as he was told and keep silent otherwise.

At the end, I was weeping. It had been too long, and I had not expected to be used like that again, not by him. Not because I thought myself too good, too useful for such base use, but because I knew that I was neither young nor beautiful enough after these long years to rouse such desires in the Derzhi.

He made a deep groan of satisfaction at last, his hands gripping my hips so tightly that I felt the sharp pain of his nails leaving bruises in the form of crescents on my skin, and despite myself I gasped again. My face was wet with tears, but I had not tried to resist even once. It was a long time since I had felt so vulnerable and so sore, so spread open and utterly conquered. This, more than anything, truly drove home the lesson that I was a slave, and that whatever I might feel or think did not matter. A slave had no thought but to please his master.

He was still large inside me, and so hot, and he stayed inside me until he had softened, idly stroking up and down my flanks like he would pet a hound, or one of his prized horses. Yet I knew that I was of far less worth than even the least of his mounts and so just stayed still, defeated at last, showing my submission to his will when I should have done so right from the beginning.

To fight a rai-kirah, here in the palace - ludicrous. I was no warden. I had no sorcery in me. I was but a barbarian slave past his prime and marked with scars to show his many failings. When Aleksander slipped from me at last and took a step back, I slid down to the floor, kneeling to show my obeisance, not even feeling the shards that pricked my skin when I pressed my forehead to the floor.

"Go," the Prince commanded. His voice was calm and devoid of any emotion once more, but when I got up and tried not to limp as I made my way towards the door, his voice stopped me. "Wait. Get me Hessio. He needs to clean up. And you..." He hesitated for a moment, then continued, his voice as sharp and commanding as before, though his words were of uncommon kindness. "Take Hessio's bed. I might have another letter to dictate in the morning."


End file.
